Practices of Interparliamentary Coordination in International Politics The European Union and Beyond

A growing number of political decisions are taken at the international level, many of which have profound national political implications. What is the role of parliaments here? Are they becoming sidelined or reasserting themselves? This book investigates how an internationalizing context drives parliamentarians to coordinate their work with colleagues in other parliaments and how this coordination can help them to strengthen their position. Furthermore, the book seeks to clarify the broader implications of inter-parliamentary coordination for the practice and the theory of democracy. While the majority of the chapters examine inter-parliamentary relations in the European Union, as it seems particularly prone to such practices, the book also contains chapters that compare the EU experience with parliamentary coordination in other international organisations, such as NATO and the WTO.